GracefulFlavor

When I first began this place, I was obsessed about stats. I would check my hit counter several times per day, and I’d rejoice when I saw a mere 20 hit jump. I remember writing a relatively stupid, amateurish post and having it get me almost 28,000 hits in a single day because it got promoted to Digg’s frontpage. I was ecstatic; I thought it meant my arrival for certain.

I suppose the traffic goal is part of the novelty and learning curve when one starts to blog. If you’re writing, you want to see people reading; the desire for an audience is natural and unapologetically human. But after a while — for me, at least — a larger charter appeared.

Since I’ve been writing GF, I’ve had dozens of offers for ad programs, link swaps, paid plugs, whatever. Thankfully, early in my writing career, I emailed a few of my favorite bloggers (John Gruber in particular) and asked their advice on the art. Their answer?

Content. Focus on content and eventually popularity, to whatever degree it might be, will come. Without quality content, you’ve really got nothing compelling to offer readers for their time and attention, and in this attention-economy we’re all playing in, that means you’re upside down. Stay there too long, and you won’t last.

Blogging is hard work, as evidenced by all the blogs who never got past their first post, and blogging quality stuff is even harder. Thankfully, I’ve paid enough attention to those who do it right and my own gut feeling that I’ve been able to make a fair cut of it.

These days, traffic doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve had this feeling for a while, and I’ve noticed myself not really caring where my stats are anymore. It’s not for a lack of concern or effort, it’s just that if I really wanted traffic, I’d have done some stupid stunt to get it, and since I haven’t, I realized I wanted a more refined, educated, select audience. Even if it meant I didn’t haul the big numbers.

Today, Robert Scoble has a post that nearly perfectly captures what I’ve been thinking for several months now:

Who is winning the race to get more traffic?

This 14-year-old kid, Fred. He’s gotten MILLIONS of views! 45 million at last count.

This is what happens when you try to simply be entertaining.

If traffic is your goal, here’s the formula. Do something really stupid that’ll make people laugh.

Me? I’ll stick with having a few thousand people passionate about learning more from innovative technologists and other leaders.

Why not get into the traffic race? Because I’d rather be in the race for a smart, focused audience. That’s where the real action is.

As a counterpoint, understand that silly does work: I Can Has Cheezburger, Failblog and other sites do silly well. They’ve found a niche and have monetized it to some extent (and yes, I realize those two blogs are in the same network). But they are who they are; their brand is established. Traffic, in their case, helped them become who they are, and it’s safe to say that the guys who run Failblog are going to suddenly switch their gameplan and try to be a kottke instead.

The moral of the story is that while traffic is a reasonable metric by which you can measure your online presence and traction (as is Twitter followers, your FriendFeed universe, etc.), it’s not the only one. If traffic is your ultimate goal, and you’re being Mr. or Mrs. Serious On The Internet, go back and read Scoble’s traffic formula. You’re probably doing it wrong.

On the other hand, if your goal is to attract a bright and interesting audience with whom you can engage in interesting conversation about a variety of topics that you love, just write quality content. The rest will do itself.